Pundits, researchers, textperts, and academics all love to talk about how they would fix the United States’ fragmented, crapped-out communication apparatus. The overarching web of demon seed spunked across drab refurbished halls in the Eisenhower Building on 17th Street NW barely covers the Sarlacc maw of offices, officials, and assholes manning the guns of This, Our National Communication Nightmare. All suggestions for reform mandate – nay, demand! – leadership in renovating this sad enterprise, this broken transistor, these crusted lips. Though none of these tremendous gasbags has deigned to ask the question most important to we lowly peasants of the pen: “Who shall lead us?” Submitted then, for no approval, is this list of AWESOME, kermodial badasses. Executives in 21st century organization and innovation. Preeminent princes of creativity. Visionaries of the better and the righteous.

Image via Wikipedia

Jack Dorsey – Creator & CEO, Twitter

Just interviewed The President using crowdsourced questions from Twitter. Twitter. A social media tool that has archived millions of impressions from people around the world and is on the way to becoming so ubiquitous that it’s considered a utility by some. Elegant simplicity and craftsmanship are his weapons. I think he knows a thing or two about designing a communication enterprise.

Image via The Guardian.

Andy Carvin – Senior Strategist, NPR

“The Crowdsorceror” who mounted a one-man content curation campaign in realtime around popular protests and demonstrations in the Middle East that later became known as the Arab Spring. Compelling, earnest believer in the power of people. His examples inspire legions of communicators to standing applause at his speaking engagements. To Carvin, community comes first. Imagine his style of realtime information gathering applied to intelligence or information operations problems.

Image via TVNewser

Jon Stewart - Host, The Daily Show

America’s funnyman turned mega-popular fake news host, consumed by millions of Americans as “real” news. Despite obvious satirical takes on journalism, staunchly defends That Which Is Right by attacking The Wrong, from Fox News insidiousness to Cramer’s role in puffing up the housing crisis. Genuinely loves America. Imagine his tenure leading government international broadcasting efforts.

Image via brosephstalin.com

Tim Hwang – Founder, Web Ecology Project, The Awesome Foundation, and The Institute for Higher Awesome Studies

A philosophical cog caught between the wheels of web analytics and netnography. Cultural researcher and student of human interaction offline, online, and elsewhere. Observer of society, real and imagined. Teamed with the right agencies, his timely insights about social communities could make AWESOMEthe work of thousands of government communication professionals.

Image via AV.com

Fred Wilson – Venture Capitalist and Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

Social entrepreneur and investor in socially transformative technologies. Believes in the transcendant like Hashable, Etsy, Foursquare, GetGlue, Kickstarter, and more. Blogs regularly about the whys and wherefores, the how-to’s, and the aspirational dreams of his investments. Imagine a federal executive who apportions program funding according to the good of society versus short-term gains or even strategic objectives.

Image via Gawker.

Peter Thiel - Serial VC, Hedge Fund Manager

Avowed investor in the impossible, from artificial intelligence to social networks like Facebook to data analytics supergiants like Palantir. Believer in not just debating future technology and social innovation but making it happen. Convener of social creatives to discuss building an objective American future. Elusive yet visionary. Skates the edge of politics with controversial libertarian-esque views on economics and democracy, a modernist perspective badly required by an ever evolving communications ecosystem.

Image via bookgalaxo.com

Tony Hsieh – CEO, Zappos

The man who brought happiness to millions and made fun a core capability of his company. Committed to making the world a happier place, a mission sorely needed in the personnel departments of hundreds of government agencies.

John Lasseter - Chief Creative Officer, Pixar

The man who built an animated powerhouse out of a tiny studio no one believed would succeed. Since producing some of the most endearing animated films in the modern age, has merged his multibillion dollar studio with Disney to usher in a new era of Imagineering. Our communications enterprise, currently swarmed with ill-trained personnel that barely understand the social phenomena happening around them, requires creativity of this man’s magnitude.

Image via Screencrave.com

Image via Headshift.com

Lee Bryant – Co-founder & Director, Headshift

A social business maestro, he advocates for clients to change the way they do business instead of simply hanging shiny new social media toys on their websites. Understands the complex challenges of technology’s promises and shortcomings in solving organizational and communications problems. Also, very British.

Image via The Huffington Post

Baratunde Thurston – Vigilante Pundit, The Onion

Champion for The Right in all things Wrong. Outspoken advocate for diversity, a trait we see too rarely in government. His infectious influence could inspire legions of public diplomats, strategic communicators, and information operators at all levels. Laughter mandating shot caller of madness. Imagine his effect teaching communicators in institutions across government how to be AWESOME and not just govvies.

David Kilcullen – Counterinsurgency Guru

An early advocate of fighting ideologically against al-Qaeda versus hand-to-hand. Believer in people-focused counterinsurgency security. Sees war as competition managed by influence instead of shootouts and bombings. Widely regarded as the smartest man on the planet when it comes to strategically understanding the wars of the future. If the Defense Department continues playing in deployed communications – and it will – then it will need a shamanic leader like this man to responsibly pilot the interagency minefields such across-the-board coordination that will require.

Image via The Washingtonian

Image via Wikipedia

Robert Gates – Former Secretary of Defense; Former Director, CIA 

The ultimate honest broker in all things government. From his perch as SECDEF, fought interminable battles with service cultures and DOD dinosaurs, breaking down inflated budgets and streamlining operations. Put this same right-is-right tenacity to work reforming and leading the rehabilitation and redesign of America’s communication enterprise across agencies, and we will see magic.

Mae Ferguson. Kind of a badass.

Mae Ferguson – President & CEO, Fort Worth Sister Cities International

People forget citizen and cultural diplomacy are cornerstone elements of strategic influence, and because of that, they remain ill coordinated with the rest of our national communication apparatus. Mae has the terrier-like tenacity and management expertise to round up the various bit parts of cultural programs and get them working properly in alignment with national influence goals. A long time nonprofit leader, she has achieved a lot with strangled budgets and limited personnel. Disclosure: she’s also my Mom.

Who am I missing?

I know you’ve got some ideas about kermodial badasses we need to draft into service of our faltering national communication enterprise. Tell me who they are in the comments.

Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan. Image by Darek_Smid via Flickr

Inspired by a recent reading of Warren Ellis‘ and Darick Robertson‘s exceptional sci-fi journalism epic Transmetropolitan, I’m going guns up on a number of communications issues affecting the communities through which I circulate in DC. Ellis’ self-described “outlaw journalist” Spider Jerusalem – fueled by copious amounts of drugs and madness in a delightful send-up of Hunter S. Thompson – promises his readership “The Truth. No matter what.” In his writing, Spider goes after all that is wrong with his beloved society, targeting everything from corrupt politicians to the public’s ignorance of special sub-cultures in their fine City. I find Spider’s epic story a galvanizing bullwhip across my back, forcing me off my Xbox-addled arse to write about some of the iniquities in government I see as part of my work. This will be just the first in a series of posts on subjects across the communications spectrum. I’m coming for ALL OF YOU.

Today, my first target is public diplomacy.

OMGWTF

Readers of this blog should not be surprised by my intense disappointment in the modern public diplomacy (or PD) community.  Today’s premeditated murder was spurred on by my attendance and yet another PD gathering in Washington, DC: a meeting of the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD). On the shores of our august capitol, PD enthusiasts, practitioners, and executives met to talk about the same retarded problems they have been since before the U.S. Information Agency‘s (aka the USIA) absorption by the State Department during the Clinton Administration. Panelists lamented continued lack of resources for PD initiatives, the imbalance between the State and Defense Departments in strategic communication capability, and a dilapidated piece of shitheel legislation called the Smith-Mundt Act whose Cold War roots strangle in the crib any offspring of modern government communication and engagement initiatives.

At issue for you oppressed, tax-fucked Americans? These same people have debated this same issue for a decade with no charted course for reform.

Hunter S. Thompson would have brain-smacked you all by now. Be thankful for my gonzo. Moo hoo ha ha. (Image from TopTenz.net. Comedy shamelessly ripped off of Warren Ellis.)

“That’s not fair!” some asshole will undoubtedly object, choking himself masturbatorially on reams of “DipNotes” from PD officers both home-based and overseas, begging our pardon thank you very much, “We have changed SO. MUCH. in the Obama Administration!” Let not these purported achievements fill you with comfort, dear seekers of AWESOME, for they elicit mere “yays” from the govvies roaming the halls of cavernous Main State and snickering derision from their interagency compatriots behind the green doors of MacDill and Bragg and Langley. Progress made under Judith McHale‘s reign as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs registers as little more than a cursory reshuffling of office space for most of the strategic communication community. Progress that scores an administration enough points for a minor electoral anecdote but changes nothing. In fact, Dame Judith hung her Mission Accomplished banner on July 1st and dashed back to the private sector, a political appointment weighing under her belt for new boardroom dances with wolves.

They define “progress” as anything more than what the last administration achieved. The politicization of public diplomacy continues. Even PD Jesus Bruce Gregory’s voice cracked with torpor as he queried the Commission about any indication of motivation amongst The Bastards of Capitol Hill to make revising legislation like Smith-Mundt a priority. No one could answer with anything but googly-eyed evasion and exhortations of more progress. All bullshit.

Key to these liver spotted deliberations is the disconcerting lack of any personage on the Commission the age of, it seems, 60? 50? 40? Said Commissioners are charged with advising the White House and Congress on the current state of PD and any required changes. Have these venerable veterans achieved any of these changes in the past? NO. Debates continue unabashed under their scrutiny, but ultimately, no capable young saviors have appeared to dash the fuckery of this decrepit profession into some semblance of modernization. Instead, more meetings. Many, many meetings.

Is PD even a necessary discipline in the 21st century? This existential question should be considered by this Commission and more. Panelists admitted that as communication becomes more social and content ownership franchises more to the individual… does a government agency have any equitable place in this modern communication continuum? How much of said agency’s budget could be repurposed into something more effective, especially in This, Our Decade of Economic Anal Probity?

In truth, some kind of coordinative communication apparatus is probably mandated, but a standalone office of diplomats still trying to get Teh Brown Peeples to read our press releases is not the answer. The profession of public diplomacy itself has even been attacked indirectly by the wild success of independent citizen diplomacy efforts. As much as foreign cultures balk at the elitist diplomacy practiced by our leaders, they clamor for more of US. OUR people. Our CITIZENS and THEIR culture. It is THIS influence, the kind Americans exude in their daily interactions with EVERYONE, that fosters our best destiny in achieving any kind of global equilibrium where U.S. interests and foreign policy objectives are met.

So. What to do?

Less bullshittery. More AWESOME.

We need not more reportage of the latest personnel changes in State PD to accommodate engagement with people of different cultures online. Instead, we need INSANE RISK TAKING. We need programs that make managers shit their pants. We need BOLDNESS. We need MADNESS. We need BETTER. Everyone lives in fear of breaking the law (i.e., Smith-Mundt), but no one has ever been prosecuted much less charged for it. COWBOY UP, PEOPLE.

Retire the old. Empower the new.

If PD is to survive, it needs to stop chasing off all its talent. Instead of rewarding the tired old Foreign Service Officers in their Cold War era suits with prime postings and political appointments, recruit badass social communicators and rockstars. Were I the President, I’d beg Jack Dorsey to fix my State Department. I’d heap tons of cash upon Katie Stanton and Jared Cohen to keep challenging the system instead of being chased off by white-faced, skeleton-eyed Statey lifers. It’s time for PD to evolve and kill its parents.

Flexible, dynamic interagency doctrine.

Christopher Paul, RAND analyst and a speaker at the ACPD meeting, noted voluminous mountains of reports all describing the same problems with the US government’s PD and strategic communication enterprise. All of them, he said, cited failures in strategy, leadership, and resources. While this is true, understand that they can only be fixed with doctrine– legislated, enforceable operating procedures that name the leader and give them authority, power, and dollars. Said doctrine should be written and executed dynamically and train its future communications professionals to a standard of dynamism instead of the usual tired old PD goals shat out by Foreign Service Institute instructors.

An organization… or not?

Since PD people love to retread the same issue over and over, the ACPD discussion inevitably turned toward the idea of a rehabilitated USIA of the future or some such public/private organization that could strategically execute funding for PD or strategic communication programs. If you think this is the solution to your PD problems, I refer you to the abortion that is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for a case study in placenta cannibalization. Ultimately, we will not know if a new organization is needed until we agree upon one final yet primarily critical issue.

Communication is communication is communication.

In the ecosystem of government influence, we have public diplomacy. We have strategic communication. We have military information operations and its subordinate components. We have public affairs. We have countless different ways of describing the same thing, mainly because Our Bastardry In Office refuse to modernize legislation and policy to reflect the present day much less prepare for the ever-fluid yet super-AWESOME future. Instead of rewriting arcane definitions and arguing them over interagency turf, we need a frank and fundamental understanding by our entire government that all of these things are influence and communication is the mechanism by which we engage that influence, be it passively or actively, openly or surreptitiously. We need a pedigree for professionals charged to operate in this ecosystem and high qualifications for the ones assigned to advise senior leaders and decision makers.

Hope Is Not Lost

It sounds doomy and gloomy from the PD pulpit, doesn’t it? Well, here’s another lovely fact for you to chew on: NOBODY CARES. That’s right. Outside of DC, Americans could care less about a minuscule communication discipline practiced by a cadre of foggy eyed concerto directors and staffs of douchebags wielding postgraduate degrees from learning institutions designed to pump out partisanly political clones year after year.

Within this black hole of apathy lies opportunity. While no one is looking, those with the drive and the passion to make change – not ask for it – can turn the modernization of PD into an ecstasy fueled RAVE. The Executive Branch needs not the pusillanimous posturing of political poobahs on the Hill to create true strategic communication primacy in government right now. But to make permanent visionary change, we will eventually need to rustle Congress into the pasture of the future.

To achieve this, however, we need YOU – that’s right, YOU – to get up off your ass and MAKE THIS AN ISSUE. Every time you vote for the guy who likes to tweet dick pics to his mistresses, you screw us out of balanced, effective decisions. Stop sending immense wankers to DC.

Next Time On Strategic Communication Theater…

In subsequent posts, we’ll explore more about what this weird world of strategic communication and influence looks like from Washington. Many of you dear AWESOMESAUCERS have no idea what I’m talking about, and that’s part of the problem. So look for a series of “WTF…?” posts detailing simple explanations of complex processes, systems, and disciplines related to Our National Communication Nightmare.

The gloves come off.

Related articles

• Conversations at American Univeristy: The Double Facepalm (mustbeawesome.com)
• A Panel Is Worth a Thousand Words… of Suckage (mustbeawesome.com)
• Clinton: Diplomacy key to job creation in US (sfgate.com)
• Is “Public Diplomacy” really Diplomacy or a Form of Marketing to an International Audience? (jedayang.wordpress.com)
• In the interest of informed debate on Public Diplomacy (mountainrunner.us)
• Twitter’s impact on public diplomacy (mountainrunner.us)

The big news yesterday hit that DC Comics will reboot their entire line of comic books beginning in September: all new #1′s, all new creative teams, all new continuity from which to tell all new stories about their classic characters. In the wake of their currently ongoing Flashpoint event, apparently some kind of event will occur that will reset the DC Universe to 0. Rolling out their big guns to show how serious they are, DC announced the first title in this reboot launch for August 31: The Justice League by writer Geoff Johns and acclaimed artist Jim Lee.

DC's rebooted Justice League. (Image courtesy of Newsarama)

For comics fans alone, this was a bombshell of an announcement. The hits didn’t stop there though as DC announced that in conjunction with this reboot, everyone one of their new titles would be available digitally same day as print.

That’s right. That noise you just heard was every comics retailer in the country shuttering their doors.

The comics Internet has, of course, exploded into fanboy rampage as the dwindling numbers of comics retailers express their outrage that DC is leaving them in the dust. They’re correct, too. DC isn’t just leaving them behind. They’re bending them over first and giving them a right good evening of buggery.

I’ve written before on the state of digital comics and how upset I am that there isn’t a better selection and a better on-time delivery date for new comics to digital apps. With this announcement, DC is coming down squarely on the side of the future, where people consume their content digitally. Pay attention to that Amazon announcement where books sold on the Kindle outsold print books? Yeah. DC did too.

I dig DC’s decision to jump headfirst into the digital arena. This is a great first step for them, but if they really want to bring the AWESOME, they need to take a couple more key steps to become the reigning giant of digital publishers:

1. Make digital titles less expensive than print titles.
2. Sell bundles or collections of stories at discounts, similar to affordable trade paperbacks.
3. Make an effort to get their entire library in their digital store.

Like a friend of mine said, I want to reread Preacher in all its glory, but I don’t want to pay $2 per issue for the complete digital edition (for a total of $132). It makes no sense. Sell that at a massive discount and I will by the entire series, like I will with other complete series like The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, and Justice League International. For what it’s worth, I think DC is on the path doing these things; they’re probably just waiting for their competitors’ next moves in the digital arms race.

One thing is clear though: retailers, your day is DONE. No more will parents have to worry about what their children are being exposed to in shifty, dank stores run by unkempt and unclean comics fanboys. Those retailers that survive will be the ones who innovatively design their store experience, as James Sime has done for Isotope.

As for the rest of you, I will not miss your terribleness one iota.

Related articles

• DC Comics planning day-and-date digital comics publishing for relaunch (mobile-ent.biz)
• DC Comics Rebooting Entire Universe (grumbleltd.wordpress.com)
• DC Comics Is Rebooting Everything and Going Digital (blogs.forbes.com)
• DC Comics to Relaunch Entire Line, Including Day-and-Date Digital (techland.time.com)
• DC Comics Relaunches Everything, Announces Day-and-Date Digital/Print Publication (wired.com)
• DC Comics Announces Historic Renumbering of All Superhero Titles and Landmark Day-and-Date Digital Distribution (graphicpolicy.com)
• DC Comics Rebooting Entire Universe Back to #1 (escapistmagazine.com)
• “Time for a Reboot.” – DC Comics (geeksaresexy.net)
• DC comics to simultaneously release print, digital versions of comic books (teleread.com)
• DC Universe Will Reboot This August; Digital Issues Available at Time of Physical Release (collider.com)
• This fall, DC Comics will restart every big superhero comic at issue #1 [Comics] (io9.com)
• DC Universe To Be Rebooted; How Will It Affect the Justice League Film? (screenrant.com)

Trying to get back into the swing of things after recovering from a trip to the Emerald Isle. Jet lag lasted way too long. Here is big dump of links from the past month or so. As always, other notable things I found cool and interesting are all captured on my Pulse Posterous feed.

Image via Wikipedia

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

Lev Grossman writes this TIME Magazine article about futurist Ray Kurzweil and his predictions for the coming Singularity. It’s a very comprehensive and thorough look into the implications of Kurzweil’s thinking, from life extension to machine awareness. What struck me most about the piece, however, was how Kurzweil’s impetus for his work boiled down to his overriding desire to bring his deceased father back to life. Kurzweil believes wholeheartedly that humans will be able to resurrect the dead at some near point in the future, possibly from as little as preserved DNA. Thus, he has taken to extending his own life via any means necessary, like consuming a massive amount of nutrient and supplement pills per day. It really speaks to me that Kurzweil believes in such a rapid explosion of technology and why he wants to be around to see it. This is a must-read for all you futurists, singularitarians and transhumanists out there.

Trailer: Another Earth

Here’s a trailer for an intriguing film I first heard about from some friends who caught its premier at Sundance this year. The buzz around this indie sci-fi movie has been lighting up the internet in recent months, and this trailer should give you all the rationale you need to find it when it releases.

Watching People Skydive in Slow Motion Is Absolutely Mesmerizing

Seriously. This video is just magical. Click through it for a larger hi-res version… and prepare to be amazed.

Experience Human Flight from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

Is a Social Currency System The Next Big Thing?

Dave Armano poses some questions about Empire Avenue, a new “social currency” system that’s part game, part stock market, part influencer metrics ecosystem. I’ve been playing around with Empire Ave for a while now, and its potential as a measurable environment for influencers – based on their social connections via networks like Facebook and Twitter – is immense. Be sure to check out the comments for good discussion on Armano’s post, and if you’re interested in trying out Empire Ave, make sure you buy several shares in yours truly, Du4.

Friday Five: What Gamification means for Digital Marketers

Edelman Digital gives a pretty succinct summary about the concept of “gamification” that’s been buzzing around digital circles since SXSW.

Hidden camera photos reveal the secret lives of scifi toys

Image by Thurston Roscoe

Leave it to io9 to find Thurston Roscoe’s hilariously staged photos of toys from our youth and what they do when we’re not looking. More fun photos at the links.

Many More Clips From The New Looney Tunes: Marvin The Martian, Yosemite Sam, Road Runner And More

I had no idea that Warner Brothers was working on a brand new Looney Tunes cartoon starring all our favorite WB cartoon characters from the Friz Freleng / Mel Blanc era. The animation looks SOLID too. Check out this clip of Foghorn Leghorn and Daffy Duck, which features some pretty advanced humor I was not expecting from a Cartoon Network show aimed (presumably) at kids. As an unabashed fan of classic Looney Tunes, I am SO EXCITED for this show’s premier on May 3rd. More vids at the link courtesy of Bleeding Cool.

Yakuza to the rescue?

Apparently, Yakuza gangsters in Japan are pitching in to help dig out people trapped and injured in the recent Japan earthquake. Code of honor indeed.

Related articles

• Ray Kurzweil on the Colbert Report (susansayler.wordpress.com)
• Exclusive Interview With Barry Ptolemy, Director of Kurzweil Documentary Transcendent Man (singularityhub.com)
• Transcendent Man Plays In San Francisco. Here’s A Transcript of Q&A Session (singularityhub.com)

Top Shelf Announces “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1988”

Alan Moore’s titular comics title organizing popular characters in Victorian and British literature follows to its logical conclusion as Moore and O’Neill bring it to the States:

Gmail Motion

A new way to communicate: send your email by simply licking a stamp!

The Aurors Trailer (Harry Potter TV Show)

Looks like a strong effort from FX Networks now that the film franchise is coming to an end.

In Baffling Move, The Huffington Post Erects Paywall Solely For NYT Employees

I don’t like ‘em either.

Google Changes Helvetica Font to Comic Sans

There are no words.

Image courtesy of Zp2it

Regularly scheduled linksharing returns next week.

Roqbot Reinvents the Jukebox as Social Game

Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a more detailed article from Wired on the coolest app I discovered at SXSW 2011. Roqbot puts control of internet enabled jukeboxes in your hands via your mobile device. You become a DJ with your own list of music that follows you around to participating locations with Rocqbot enabled jukeboxes. When you check into those venues, you can then control the jukebox’s playlist with a system of credits and rewards. Pretty great solution for all those bars you go to that keep playing “Freebird.”

Norman Spinrad’s QUARANTINE

Only Warren Ellis could send a link to a sci-fi story about a bio-attack on New York that makes everyone have uncontrollable diarrhea. Spinrad’s latest novella deserves a look for that concept alone, but I’m also intrigued by Spinrad’s publishing model for this story. He’s going direct-to-reader via Amazon for a $3 mini-ebook. Worth checking out.

In The Midst Of A Massively Successful SXSW, Foursquare Tackles Venue Harmonization

TechCrunch has a good rundown of who I saw as the SXSW 2011 “winner,” Foursquare, and why. Dennis Crowley‘s plans to open up Foursquare’s checkin data to local businesses, with which they can create dashboards of customer information, is a brilliant application for the location-based service. Where this social tool was once seen as a frivolous game, I think the data built from its users is going to change the way brick and mortar business works in the future, particularly if those businesses are having a hard time staying open due to online competition. Even more importantly, as TechCrunch notes here, Foursquare is going to try and crack the nut of venue harmonization: developing a single online data set for each physical location someone could check into, regardless of what geolocation service they prefer (Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, etc).

Question Everything: Max More on Singularity 1 on 1

One of my new favorite regular reads via Pulsememe is Socrates’ Singularity Blog. This latest post features a 50-minute long interview with “futurist and strategic philosopher” Max More. This is my first exposure to More, and I’m an instant fan. More is the CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Institute, a private sector entity dedicated to preserving one’s body past its normal lifespan. This basically involves employing cryonics technologies to freeze one’s brain (they even offer full body suspended animation!) on the hedge that in the future, humans will invent technology to resurrect the dying or dead tissue.

That’s not even the interesting part of the interview though. More – a name self-chosen based on his predilection toward transhumanism – offers tons of different insights into how one can immediately begin living a posthuman life. The most interesting piece of this interview to me was how More describes his diet and exercise regime, which are based on the “paleo” system:

The Paleo diet throwback as a model for transhuman evolution poses so many cool discussions. But the thing that’s so inspiring about this is that Max More is actually living the posthuman life NOW. More (whom I was surprised to learn is the husband of fellow transhumanist and futurist Natasha Vita-More, whose talk at SXSW sent chills down my spine) speaks with a wonderful degree of belief and authority for transhumanism, and he espouses a message that should kick even the laziest of armchair futurists out of their chairs and into action. Check out the three previous videos of his talk with Socrates at the link or listen to the podcast.

Related articles

• Natasha Vita-More, Doug Lenat, and Michael Vassar to Speak at SXSW (acceleratingfuture.com)
• Transhumanism: The Most Dangerous Idea? (3p1alloymok.wordpress.com)
• Roqbot Is A Jukebox On Your iPhone (techcrunch.com)
• Video Demo of Roqbot: a virtual, digital jukebox (indiemusictech.com)

I tried to document as many of my ongoing thoughts as I could over on my Posterous feed during SXSW, but I thought I’d take some time to try and make some coherent sense of the week-long insanity I put myself through.

Location, Location, Location

There didn’t seem to be any consensus on a single new technology or app that debuted or blew up SXSW this year. However, plenty of existing ones brought immense marketing campaigns to Austin, and the majority of those seemed to be location-based services. Gowalla, in my opinion, severely dropped the ball by not preparing local Austin businesses for the influx of SXSW geeks galvanized by the Gowalla passport scavenger hunt. Foursquare, on the other hand, ruled the day by deploying 2000 virtual “Golden Tickets” into specific checkin spots in Austin that unlocked free tickets to their Big Boi headliner show. So many more location-based companies littered the landfalls in Austin as well, each with some zany promotional campaign to get people to download and use their app.

David Armano's Allhat3 at Guero's.

For my money, Foursquare was the clear popularity winner here. Their partnership with Pepsi – where they created an actual competitive foursquare court near the Austin Convention Center – culminated with an AWESOME party at the Seaholm Power Plant, where all sorts of people got to chill with Dennis Crowley and his Foursquare army to the tunes of Locksley, The Sounds, and Big Boi.

App Discovery of SXSW: Roqbot

Roqbot is an app-based service that allows you to take control of online-enabled jukeboxes in bars, clubs, restaurants, and other locations featuring these types of music services. Once you download the app, you develop a DJ profile of your favorite music and check into whatever location you happen upon that has one of these net-enabled jukeboxes. From there, you’re able to control the music playlist emanating from the box. Don’t like Lady Gaga? Spend a couple Roqbot credits to put some Oasis on higher in the music queue. You also earn free credits to play by unlocking various checkin rewards or you can just connect Roqbot to a Paypal account and buy songs directly. It’s SUCH a great a control solution for jukeboxes in places. I can’t wait till they expand their services into the DC/NOVA region.

DC Represents

I was caught off-guard by the massive DC presence at SXSW. From government rockstars like Amanda Eamich from USDA to nonprofit supercolliders like Tammy Gordon of AARP, DC’s varied social media community descended on Austin in force. I hung out with Mike Schaffer, Director for Social Media at iostudio the most, and lamented that despite having met and living near DC, we never hang out like we did at SXSW. I’m making a pledge to change that behavior on my part now that I’m home, and I want to invite any and all DC/NOVA peeps to call me on any antisocial leanings I may display from this point forward.

Margie and Dave Newman, masterminds of the DC Flacks Meetup group, created an on-the-fly “DCxSW” Twitter handle and hash for all of us while in Austin. They also organized an impromptu meetup of these DCists at the Driskill Hotel one night where I had the best networking conversations of the week. I met a lot of folks i only knew through Twitter here, and I am super-excited to build upon those relationships in the future.

So here’s a big public shout-out to all my DCxSW peeps: Margie, Dave, Schaffer, Gabe Hilado, Amandare!, Alejandra Owens, Peter Corbett, Tammy Gordon, Tammy Portnoy, Lisa Byrne, Patti Shea, and all the rest of you AWESOME DC peeps. It was also great meeting a bunch of non-DC folks like Jeff Esposito, Teresa Cantwell, and old friends Anne Weiskopf and Tonia Reis (formerly of TWTRCON fame, now The Realtime Report

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." --Davy Crockett

).

Walking in Your Footsteps

Much of the research I performed in prep for this massive undertaking panned out well. I intend to do up a fuller post on the travel hacks I came with on the fly, but the basics came down to comfortable shoes and clothing at all times. I can’t tell you how many times I just had to sit down because my feet hurt so bad from walking around so much. People recommended Converse as the go-to shoes for SXSW, but I have to put in a plug for the much comfier and supportive Merrel’s that I brought.

Panels & Speakers

For the mot part, I found SXSW panels pedantic and freshman. The only ones that piqued my interest and delivered a good conversation were a panel on The Singularity and another with John Hagel III on shaping the future. The Singularity panel brought together experts like Michael Vassar from the Singularity Institute and Natasha Vita-More from Humanity+ for a SUPER-AWESOME discussion about the ethical limits of transhumanism and posthumanity. I’m stll processing a lot of the info from this panel, but be sure to check out the convo archived on the #singularity hashtag. That conversation is still going on, so feel free to jump in and add your thoughts.

Seaholm Power Plant, site of the Foursquare/PepsiMax party.

I missed Seth Priebatsch’s keynote on the gamification of marketing and education, but I heard it was cool. I also missed Christopher Poole, aka moot of 4chan, who gave a keynote on social communities online and how their influence will continue to grow in the future. I heard good things about both of these keynotes but just couldn’y sync schedules to make them

Getting Your Groove On

I was most disappointed by the party situation. I RSVP’d for several parties specifically to hang out with or meet people that were throwing them. Unfortunately, every party is oversold, leading to massive numbers of people often crowding into small clubs, all trying to figure out who’s there that’s important or famous. What’s worse, I got the distinct impression at many of these parties that pre-existing community relationships led to a degree of “cliquey-ness” that isolated a lot of outsiders. This bothered me mainly because a lot of folks like myself stood in these long-ass lines for long periods of time to get into cool parties that only turned out to be fun for the cool kids.

Ogilvy Notes, a cool attempt to make visual sense out of all the information overloading SXSW's attendees.

There were literally so many people at many of these parties that you would get interrupted talking to someone of note, and they would never come back to you due to successive interruptions. It’s damned hard to connect with someone in this fashion, and you can damn sure bet I’ll be working on a SXSW Guide to Party Ethics for 2012.

Even worse, most of the Interactive parties featured some of the worst, most annoying DJs on the planet. Note to party organizers of the future: they don’t call Austin the “Live Music Capital of the World” for nothing. If you want to throw a SXSW party next time, do some fucking due diligence and get a couple of inexpensive but AWESOME live acts instead of a bunch of douchy DJ pricks.

Music vs. Interactive

SXSW should really be broken up into two conferences for Music and Interactive because virtually everyone from the Interactive festival popped smoke when the Music festival began. It was SUCH a sea change in personalities too: I joked to a buddy that all the Interactive geeks stayed inside the Convention Center for Interactive where Austin had to shut down streets to accommodate the influx of Music nerds.

What’s funny about the disparity between Music and Interactive attendees (and the lurking Film festival geeks too), is that they could all stand to spend time in each other’s sessions. So much inspiration flowed out of musical performances that I think would have benefited Interactive attendees, particularly the PR and marketing types who were hard-charging the entire time selling and jiving versus soaking up the people’s culture.

Emmylou Harris performing solo on the Radio Day Stage.

I’ll do up a separate post later on the musical discoveries I made. Those are stories in and of themselves.

Omni Hotels Continue to Rock

Not only did my lovely friends at Omni Hotels hook me up with a couple free drinks and grab bag of SXSW necessities, I also found that the Omni’s parking situation far outweighed any other in downtown Austin. Where other lots were jacking prices up to $10 and $20 at a time, the Omni kept a moderate $7 a day parking charge for SXSWi. What’s more, you could avoid that charge completely if you returned for your car after midnight, where they opened the garage. GREAT customer service from Omni, especially for people who weren’t even staying at their hotel for SXSW. Thanks again for the stops along the way!

(Pro-tip: The Omni also had the cleanest bathrooms in town. At about midnight when those tacos are kicking in, ain’t nothing better than a spotless and empty bathroom!)

Where Do We Go From Here?

The Macallan 15, proud sponsor of SXSW and drunk-asses everywhere.

SXSW was a worthy event, but I’m not sure I can do it all in one sitting again. It was a great time, and I enjoyed it, but had it not been for the people I met there, it could have been a big old bust. I brought back with me a ton of great ideas and content that I have to work with, so I hope to see some heavy return on investment soon. In that vein, keep your eyes peeled for successive posts about different SXSW aspects that I couldn’t fit into this one.

Related articles

• Roqbot Reinvents the Jukebox as Social Game (wired.com)
• Notes from Austin part two (liesdamnedliesstatistics.com)
• Who Will Win the SXSW Location War? (ghdialogue.posterous.com)
• Instagram and Foodspotting most popular iPhone apps at SXSW (thenextweb.com)
• SXSW’s Next Big Thing Summed Up in One Word: ‘Us’ (adage.com)
• Who Won the “Battles” of SXSW? [INFOGRAPHICS] (mashable.com)
• The 10 Most Buzzed About Brands at SXSW [STUDY] (mashable.com)
• Seth Priebatsch on Gamification, LBS, Education & Meaning at SXSW (downtheavenue.com)
• SXSW 2011 “Winners”: Foursquare and Hashable (cash-bandit.com)
• Final Thoughts From A SXSW Newbie (blog.jessicamalnik.com)
• Mastering social media saturation at SXSW (cnet.com)
• Foursquare’s SXSW Plan: “NEW APP + NEW BADGES + PARTIES + CONCERT + MOAR” (techcrunch.com)
• Foursquare Not Wasting Any Opportunities To Tease About Its SXSW “Plans” (businessinsider.com)

Not much to report this week due to a flurry of Du4licious activity in prep for this week’s Sister Cities International conference in Arlington. But a couple things did catch my eye.

Image via Wikipedia

Revealing the Man Behind @MayorEmanuel

Like many across the country, I fell in love with the raucous foulness of Rahm Emanuel‘s parody Twitter account, which started broadcasting shortly after Rahm left the White House to run for mayor of Chicago. As @MayorEmanuel’s popularity grew, so too did the mystery of who was really behind it. In this Atlantic article, @MayorEmanuel’s pilot is revealed: Dan Sinker, a Chicago punk rocker and new age digital storyteller. Sinker describes @MayorEmanuel as performance art, a new sort of digital political commentary that weaves in and out of fiction, celebrity, and current events. I’m massively intrigued by the potential of using Twitter in a manner like Sinker did. Anonymity is so easily protected on this network, there are huge opportunities for persona manipulation… which makes me wonder about the future of digital identity. Great read.

On Revolutions

Pretty interesting perspective on the Middle East protests from Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity. Guillebeau has made a name for himself as a “travel hacker” by finding inexpensive means of visiting all sorts of places around the world. He is, in my opinion, a true citizen diplomat (public diplomacy peeps: take note). His experiences flying into Afghanistan, Libya, and Iran (!), give him an interesting “average joe” insight to what’s really at the forefront of people’s minds in those countries. Highly recommended read, and be sure to subscribe to Guillebeau’s blog too. It’s a must for nonconformists, proto-world dominators, and doowutchyalikes.

Announcing: Open Foresight & The Future of Facebook Project

Venessa Miemis is at it again with what sounds like an AWESOME forecasting initiative via Kickstarter. She has already interviewed several notable social media and tech influencers and has opened up her research questions to the public on Quora. I highly recommend EVERYONE go and participate in this project. I’ve blogged about Venessa before, and I think her work as a modern digital/social futurist demonstrates a LOT of required skills we as humans need to adopt to adapt to the new digital lifestyles in which we find ourselves.

Related articles

• The Man Behind The Fake @MayorEmanuel Twitter Feed Is Revealed (mediaite.com)
• Dan Sinker Is @MayorEmanuel: Punk Planet Founder, Journalism Professor Behind Notorious Twitter Acccount (huffingtonpost.com)
• Fake Rahm Emanuel Twitter author revealed (thehill.com)
• Rahm To Meet Dan Sinker Today (huffingtonpost.com)
• MYSTERY SOLVED: Rahm’s Twitter imposter revealed (politico.com)